Cornies: Science moves us forward - but so do stories

At the start of a speech to the Canadian Science Policy Conference in Ottawa last month, Gov. Gen. Julie Payette told a little story.

It was drawn, she said, not from science or literal experience, but from her imagination. And she chose the form of a story to deliver her truth.

Payette bemoaned the fact that, during small talk at cocktail hours and coffee shops, science and technology seldom got any acknowledgment, let alone respect. Polite conversation in those social settings, Payette noted, seemed always to gravitate toward mundane topics such as the weather or sports. Never science.

And then, sounding a bit like Dr. Sheldon Cooper, the lead character from TV’s The Big Bang Theory, Payette lamented the fact that most Canadians are more likely to think that a neutrino is a new energy drink, rather than know it as a subatomic particle.

“Perhaps someday those of us who live and breathe science will no longer be considered weird; that we will be able to claim that, as a nation, we are a science-literate people . . . (that) we can discuss how relevant science is to environmental and social issues; that science is an indisputable tool in our moving forward,” she said.

Then she found her stride, skewering climate-change deniers, evolution skeptics and junk-medicine devotees, comparing them to believers in astrological signs.

“Can you believe that, still today, in learned society and in houses of government, unfortunately, we’re still debating and still questioning whether humans have a role in the Earth warming up — or whether even the Earth is warming up, period? That we are still debating and still questioning whether life was a divine intervention or whether it came out of a natural process, let alone, lo and behold, a random process.

“Yet so many people . . . still believe that taking a sugar pill will cure cancer, if you will it (to be so). And that your future . . . (your) personality will be determined by looking at planets coming in front of invented constellations.”

Given Payette’s science background and her audience that night — the A-listers among Canada’s scientists, researchers and policy makers — her frontal attack on all things not observable was not surprising.

But in trying to define humanity’s search for meaning and understanding, she missed half the equation.

Artists, musicians, novelists, dancers, actors, writers and theologians seek truth too — just not in the same places or through the same means.

They too sometimes wish that their pursuits were better understood inside cocktail circuits and coffee shops and not relegated so quickly to the trash bins of pop culture or stereotypical distortions.

Religion and faith often sit at a nexus, a point of collision, between science and art.

And few occasions highlight the differences between those two filters, through which we see the world, as Christmas.

What is it about the Christmas season that, even in post-Christian society, seems so magnetic and durable?

What is at the root of its capacity to bend the light of our normal existence and transport us, if even temporarily, in an altered state of heightened generosity, empathy and selflessness?

It’s not the season’s commercialization or gift-giving; those are artificial attempts to grasp at the answer. Nor can it so easily be explained as nostalgia for a simpler time, as some psychologists and authors have conjectured.

The Christmas narratives, as set down in the Christian gospels, are an eclectic mix: a dash of history, a dab of early science and generous portion of powerful storytelling, focused on the birth of Jesus to an outcast couple in the out-of-the-way town of Bethlehem.

But they telegraph a host of other themes and truths: the existence of a divine spark inside every human being, the prospect of peace on Earth and goodwill among all humankind, the spiritual quests we undertake against the shifting sands of our time, the worthiness of the meek and poor, the yearning in us all for some type of spiritual fulfilment. And, most importantly, the power of love.

Some critics have pointed out, rightly I think, that the key to the durability of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol isn’t Ebenezer Scrooge’s encounters with the spirits of the past, present and future.

Rather, it’s in the character of Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, who never gives up on his uncle, constantly beckoning him toward family, the restoration of broken relationships and the rediscovery of the divine spark within himself.

Whether it is the biblical Christmas account or the myths, tales, music and traditions we’ve invented in tribute, it is the work of artists and storytellers that fills the gaps left by science, reminding us of the mysterious and timeless appeal of what Christmas represents.

Their works draw not so much from science or literal experience, but from yearning and imagination. And through music, art and story, they too deliver truth.

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